Saturday, October 17, 2009

Pucker up and imbibe

I was given two large bottles of DeKuyper Sour Apple Pucker for my birthday. Just to clarify, Sour Apple Pucker is a particular brand of apple schnapps. Now, I've never so much as polished my sunglasses with apple schnapps. I've never tried any kind of schnapps at all, in fact. I don't go in fer all them newfangled, city-bred liqueurs: Sambuca (ugh, licorice), Galliano, Midori, or worst of all, Jägermeister. The latter tastes like pepperoni-flavored mouthwash. So, as you may guess, I had nary a clue about what I was going to do with these liters of schnapps I suddenly had. I was stumped. Then, in the blackest depths of midnight, I did some illicit Googling over at my best friend John's house. Here are some of the gems we discovered:
  • All Puckered Out: a shot Sour Apple Pucker schnapps, a can of ginger ale, and a lime wedge
  • Green Meanie: a shot of Pucker and a can of lemon-lime soda
  • Mother Pucker: a fifth of DeKuyper Sour Apple Pucker schnapps and a bottle of 7-Up
  • Apple Crunch: Apple Pucker, Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, cranberry juice, pineapple Juice, Sprite, triple sec
  • Appletini: Apple Pucker, vodka
  • Dirty Whore's Bathwater: Apple Pucker, lemonade mix, Smirnoff Premium Vodka
  • Frog Stomper: Apple Pucker, tequila
  • Hot Apple Cider: apple cider, Apple Pucker, and Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum
You know, except for the Apple Crunch, none of these sound ugly. I actually served Green Meanies at my Halloween party on the sixteenth, and they seemed to go down well. I didn't try one myself; I was so busy hosting that I hardly had time to drink, which perhaps was fortunate. (All I had was a tequila cooler, a shot of Scotch whisky, a shot of Jose Cuervo, and some beer.) So, I guess I'll have to add these Pucker drinks to the already tome-length list of cocktails I want to try. But I could use your help, too. If anybody out there has tried apple schnapps before and has a recommendation for me, kindly set it down here. If there are other kinds of schnapps out there that you think I'd like to try or mix, please let me know. If there's a Pucker-related cocktail in the above list that you think I ought to try first, by all means drop me a line and I'll review it for you. Otherwise...good day, and thanks for tuning in.

4 comments:

Susan Carpenter Sims said...

Part of the reason it's taken me so long to comment on this post is because of my history with Schnapps. I almost didn't make it to my high school graduation because of a drink made with peach Schnapps called a Fuzzy Navel.

I used to drink enormous amounts of Rumpleminze. I didn't just shoot it, I drank whole cups of it at a time.

Never tried the apple. Most of those drinks you list do sound pretty good though, especially the first one.

I love your description of Jagermeister. I drank way too much of that stuff in high school and have now completely lost my taste for it. It's just nasty. Today at the pharmacy, the woman in front of me in line and the guy behind the counter were discussing it. She described it as "cough syrup."

I also love the title of this post.

What, exactly, makes Googling "illicit"?

A.T. Post said...

"All Puckered Out" is the only drink I've tried so far...and it was, indeed, gorgeous. I highly recommend it.

A Fuzzy Navel! You have good taste. That is, like, THE classic schnapps-oriented drink. I've been meaning to try one myself. Bravo on having a few before graduation. That's something I never had the courage to do.

Rumple Minze, eh? I've always wondered about that stuff whenever I see it in the store. What's it like? CUPS of it, eh? Bravo. I could hardly do that with soju (Korean liquor) and that stuff's only 40 proof.

I just couldn't understand why EVERYBODY on my college rugby team LOVED Jäger. I mean, they'd be gathered in the kitchen after every game, dancing the Kalinka and swigging shots of the stuff. Jeez.

Oh good. I kind of agonized over the title. It was originally going to be "Pucker up and growl."

Illicit? Well, mostly the fact that we were doing it in the dead of night after John's parents had gone to bed. And the fact that were chuckling with suppressed laughter at some of these drinks with only a paper-thin ceiling separating us from his parents' bedroom. Perhaps it wasn't literally illicit, but it had every appearance of being so.

Susan Carpenter Sims said...

I don't think I can ever drink a Fuzzy Navel again after that night. I puked out of the window of whoever's house I ended up at, some couple I'd barely met.

Rumpleminze is 100 proof peppermint schnapps. And I don't even like peppermint - except in Rumpleminze. Shooting it is like cold burning refreshment. I dunno. That guy I told you about - Demon - I was going out with him at the time, and he had done all the artwork for this one bar, so he had a free unlimited tab - and therefore so did I.

"Pucker up and growl" is good too, but I like the blending of low and high vocabulary in the title you chose. Come to think of it, that's one of the things I like most about your writing.

A.T. Post said...

Eee-YUCK. Peppermint? Splendid, thanks for the warning. Now I know to steer clear of that stuff.

Okay, maybe one shot wouldn't hurt.

Interesting you should say that (thanks very much, by the way). Ever since I loosened up in college and began to curse like a sailor (after previously being a profanity teetotaler) I've been on a sort of mission to prove that a person can be literate, well-read and intelligent and still curse like a sailor. Speaking of a blend of high and low vocabulary...